Tony B came in yesterday and we are refitting as I write this, he has a nice boat. Will be here a couple more days. Needed some mechanical work etc.

Tony B

05-24-2014, 05:03 AM

Tony B came in yesterday ....... Will be here a couple more days. ........

[B]And Pirate hasn't run us off yet. LOL

If you like the laid-back country atmosphere of peace and quiet, this is the place to be. Pirates marina has just about everything you want CLEAN restroom/shower facilities, great mechanic available, gasoline and diesel, 30 and 50 Amp service. small store, free access to a courtesy car/mini-van and a large turn-around basin that is big enough to maneuver a battle ship, not to mention the helpfulness of Pirate and his staff. They helped us tie-up and un-tie and came by later to make sure everything was OK. The docks are old but still very usable and I understand they are going to be replaced in the not so distant future. This is a great place and we will miss it when we leave. He even has RV''s here - too bad I don't have any friends.
I would give this a Five Star rating if you are in the Witness Protection Program. Make this one of your planned stop-overs.

So far, we have come about 900 water miles. We have a little over 200 more miles to go to our final destination for this year. We will be settling down in Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, Al. till spring.
Come springtime we are not sure if we will head up to Ky. Lake as originally planned or keep going east on the Tennessee River. I've heard a lot about the "Little Tennessee River" where you can actually see the Great Smokey Mountains.
And I thought that retirement meant that you didn't have to make any decisions.

pirate

05-26-2014, 01:04 PM

Thank you for the kind words Tony B, you guys come back anytime and good luck, we all enjoyed you being here.

OLD HOUSEBOATER

05-26-2014, 08:41 PM

You will love Wheeler. We were there 13 years.

Tony B

05-28-2014, 05:49 AM

We made it to the tri-state area (Ms., Tn, Al.) in 2 days. Went through 4 locks each say. Every time we called at about 30 minutes out, they just said "the gates are open, just come on in" except for the last one. The lock master informed us that he was going to close the gates in 20 minutes to get ready for a southbound tow with barges. If we could make it in 20 minutes, he will get us through. I told him we will be there in 20 minutes. Didn't have time to lollagag and sight-see cause if I didn't make it through the locks I would have lost an hour and a half. That don't seem like much but it could have possibly cost me an extra day. Doing 4 locks a day and zipping through saved me a day off the trip. Normally, that would have not made a difference but we left Texas in December and are now ready to get to our 2014 destination - Joe Wheeler State Park on the Tennessee River in northern Alabama.
We are now just 1 day's run from getting to Joe Wheeler and waiting on weather. Hopefully we will try to make it tomorrow morning with only 30% chance of t-storms. I'll make up my mind tonite, which is subject to conditions when I get up at 5am in the morning.

Jolly Time

05-29-2014, 11:09 AM

Hey Tony! I was on Bay Springs all day Tuesday. Hate I missed you! Hope you have a good remainder of your trip, almost there!! Jolly Time

BananaTom

05-29-2014, 03:52 PM

Sorry I missed you TonyB, got the phone call message you left, however; the Pensacola Flood of 04/29/14 has me working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I am an insurance adjuster. I adjust the county owned property. Gotta allot of buildings down, including the Jail that exploded.

Glad you made it up the Tenn Tom to Pirates place, been a few years since I have seen Ed.

Safe motoring on the final leg of your trip.

BananaTom

05-29-2014, 03:52 PM

And now you can say you ran the "Dirty Dozen"

The 12 locks up to Pickwick

Tony B

05-29-2014, 07:37 PM

We finally made it to Joe Wheeler St. Park today.
We absolutely fell in love with Pickwick lake and the Tennessee River. Reminds me of the Corpse Of Engineers lakes in Arkansas.

Jolly Time: I hate that we missed you too. I'm sure some day in the future, our paths will cross.

Banana Tom: Sorry we missed you too. We had plans of doing some coastal cruising before heading north and the storms changed our plans also. there will always be a 'next time'

OHB: I'm sure we will love it here also and thanks for the info.

Ed: We will get back down to your place again eventually. We enjoyed our stay.

Tony B

06-10-2014, 09:46 AM

We are loving Joe Wheeler St. Park.
We were only here a week when I was re-introduced to tornado warning. Hadn't been through one since I left Arkansas almost 25 years ago. The park has a few sheltering areas that looked fairly safe. One is only about 300 feet away - The shower stalls in the ladies and men's room in the Office/Store/Laundry building. There were 2 funnel clouds spotted that evening, one to the west and later on, one to the east. there was no damage that I know of. I received a warning on my cell phone and a few minutes later the local police came driving through with sirens and megaphone blaring. It turned out to be a good opportunity to meet about a dozen or so of our neighbors.

Anyhoo, some personal feelings about the situation which inevitably pits tornados against hurricanes:
You only sweat out a tornado warning for about an hour or two. Hurricane warnings, on the other hand, you sweat out for about 3 weeks constantly looking at the projected path which changes almost daily. Neither is fun, but I'd rather have the short term tornado warning. From a personal standpoint, if you take a direct hit, the results will likely be about the same.

These words of wisdom are coming to you live from Tony B and are definitely not quote worthy. I just have too much time on my hands.

pirate

07-23-2014, 02:56 PM

How are things Tony, I have redone most of the marina deck, new paint and new docks are coming. See you when you get here.

Tony B

07-26-2014, 08:37 PM

Hi Pirate

Glad things are going well. Ya gonna post some pics?
The weather here has been exceptional. Unusually cool for this time of year. Tuesday supposed to have a high of 81 with a low of 57 and Thurs and Fri will have a high of 82 with lows in the low 60's.
My neck is a\starting to turn red and I'm not scared of banjo music anymore, LOL. Helen loves it here and my kids and grandson were here a few weeks ago and Helens kids and grandbaby will be here next week. We are only 5 hours drive from my daughters in Little Rock and 6 hrs drive from her son in St. Louis. I don't think we could have found a better place.

Not sure when we will get back down there again, but eventually we will.

OLD HOUSEBOATER

07-27-2014, 07:52 AM

Tony

Are you at Joe Wheeler?

Tony B

07-27-2014, 03:26 PM

OHB

Yes we are and loving every minute of it. There seems to be something going on every weekend around here. Fri nite was "Rolling on the River" music festival in the park. It was really good.
Actually took my yankee butt to a Blue Grass Festival right here in Rogersville a few weeks back. We did however, miss the "Running of the Goats". I don't know what happened to that Brooklyn boy that came with this body.

Thanks again for letting be know about Joe Wheeler.

Tony B

OLD HOUSEBOATER

07-28-2014, 06:54 AM

If Bill and Carol Yancy are still there (36 Trawler) tell them we said "Hey"